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Nigeria’s NFT marketplace, Ayoken, secures $1.4m to expand venture. 2 other stories and a trivia.

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This line-up of stories will help you discover the latest happenings around the tech world, today

1. Nigeria’s NFT marketplace, Ayoken, secures $1.4m to expand venture

A Lagos-based Non-fungible Token (NFT) marketplace, Ayoken, has announced securing a $1.4m pre-seed funding to expand footprint and allow users boost income.

Ayoken founder and CEO, Joshua King, confirmed the latest funding in a statement seen by Ripples Nigeria on Tuesday.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that Factory Africa, Texas-based Kon Ventures, Europe-based venture capital collective Crypto League, Ghana-based R9C Ventures and Maximus Ventures were among investors in the pre-seed funding.

Launched in 2022 by Joshua King, the startup has offices in London and Lagos.

As a marketplace, Ayoken bridges fans and artists and gives supporters a sense of ownership in the success of their idols.

Speaking on the development, King said that the latest raiser would be invested in purchasing premium licenses and partnerships with telcos.

He said: “A majority of the funding will go into buying exclusive licenses and into building our tech team, that is the developers and engineers by fourfold.

“We are reducing friction points for the users by letting people use their cards instead of having to use crypto to buy, we are working on partnerships with telcos that will allow people to use mobile money to make the payment in future too.

“Nothing comes close to what we are doing and that is why we are able to sign some of the biggest names in the creative industry.”

Tech Trivia: What word describes software that can run on Windows and Macintosh computers?
A Crossplatform
B Universal
C Hybrid
D Extensible
Answer: see end of post

2. SA’s LifeCheq secures $3.3m Series A led by Naspers Foundry

A South African fintech startup, LifeCheq, on Tuesday announced securing an R53 million (US$3.3 million) Series A investment led by Naspers Foundry.

Read also :Nigeria’s edtech startup Stranerd launches P2P learning platform. 1 other thing and a trivia

Abubakari Malik Addae, co-founder and CEO of LifeCheq confirmed the latest funding in a press statement on Napser’s website.

To lead the investment, Naspers Foundry invested R40 million (US$2.5 million) in the fintech startup.

Naspers Foundary, which is an early-stage technology company, focus on stimulating South Africa’s local tech sector.

The cape town-based startup was launched in 2015 by Abubakari Malik Addae, and Shen Tian.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that the latest investment is Naspers Foundry’s fifth fintech investment and eleventh tech transaction since its launch.

Malik, while expressing his excitement, said:

He said: “Existing solutions for quality financial advice practically ignore more than 2 billion mass affluent clients globally, simply because they’re not wealthy enough.

“Our mission is to fix that. It is great to partner with Naspers Foundry. They have taken the time to understand our vision and the opportunity in our offering, and we are extremely excited about the journey ahead.”

3. Finclusion raises undisclosed funding from Egypt’s CASF

A US-based fintech startup, Finclusion Group, has announced raising an undisclosed funding from an Egypt-based micro VC firm, The Cairo Angels Syndicate Fund (CASF).

Timothy Nuy, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Finclusion Group, confirmed the development in a statement on Tuesday.

Finclusion Group enhances financial inclusion in Africa by building transformative financial technology services focused on high-growth market segments, providing world-class customer experiences.

In addition, the startup leverages its credit, risk and technology expertise to grant financial services safely and easily using advanced, proprietary Algorithms.

Launched in 2019 by Timothy Nuy, the startup has presence in South Africa, Namibia, Kenya and Tanzania.

Commenting on the raiser and intent, Nuy said:

“Finclusion Group is exceptionally pleased to have the Cairo Angels Syndicate Fund join its shareholder base. With CASF, the Group continues building out its shareholder base with aligned investors – and has secured a strong partner for potential future geographic expansion.

“Being the CASF’s second investment recipient outside of Egypt, in our view, speaks volumes as to the progress we have made recently.

“We look forward to working with the CASF to continue building Africa’s neobank.”

Trivia Answer: Crossplatform

Software that can run on multiple types of computer systems. For example, the graphics program Adobe Photoshop and the word processor Microsoft Word are both available for the Windows and Macintosh operating systems.

Therefore, Photoshop and Word are considered to be crossplatform applications. While “crossplatorm” is typically used to describe computer software, it can refer to hardware as well.

For example, peripherals such as keyboards, mice, printers, scanners, and digital cameras that work on both Mac and PC are crossplatorm. Software and hardware that work on more than one platform are also called multiplatform.

By Kayode Hamsat

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